1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to systems and methods for accessing a collection of content portions.
2. Description of Related Art
Increasingly, the World Wide Web has become the information delivery mechanism of choice for both corporations and individual users. The ubiquity of World Wide Web browsers and the push by many corporations to adopt commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology have all helped the World Wide Web become the delivery option for most information systems.
Although information sources are now more likely to be available to their intended audience through the World Wide Web, access to relevant information is still limited by the user's ability to navigate both the World Wide Web and the destination websites themselves to actively retrieve the required information.
Many website designers design a website which is suited for the information to be conveyed by the website. For example, a website designer of a county government tax assessors office site may assume that any query would be related to county tax assessment. In contrast, the website designer for an online department store would design a website that would provide a user with access to product information of products that are available at the store. Likewise, the website designer of an internal corporate information site would provide information such as corporate tax information, real estate holdings, business permits and/or health and safety records. Accordingly, certain tasks would be better addressed by one website when compared with another website and certain information needs would be satisfied by one website rather than another website.
Usually, it is not easy for a user to initially formulate a query so precise that the user is immediately able to accurately find the required information contained in the websites. For example, the user may not be familiar with the terms used in describing the information. In many instances, the user has only a general understanding of the information. Therefore, in a typical search, the user may initially perform a browsing session that broadly uncovers information in a general manner. As the user becomes familiar with the range of topics available and the terms related to the information, the user refines the browsing session to obtain topics which are more closely related to the user's needs. Once the user is satisfied, the user may then perform specific searches on the results of such a refocused search that would lead to the required information.